


Prometheus and Eurydice

by chthonianCrocuta (lovesthesoundof), Innsmouth, Skarita



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesthesoundof/pseuds/chthonianCrocuta, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innsmouth/pseuds/Innsmouth, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarita/pseuds/Skarita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>A familiar voice is saying </i>Rosie, thank god<i>, and the speaker gathers you into their arms - it's a woman, you can feel the gentle swell of her chest.</i></p><p>
  <i>You know the scent of her, but not her name.</i>
</p><p>Lady Rosebriar is a supernatural crime-fighter, feared by ne'er-do-wells and respected by her peers.  She's infamous for her determination; not even the loss of her left hand could stop her from taking to the streets.  But one night in October she got in over her head - and now Rose Lalonde, the girl behind the name, has forgotten who she is...</p><p>Created for the HSWC 2013, Round Two, blending the steampunk, superhero and gothic horror genres. Writing by chthonianCrocuta (lovesthesoundof) and Innsmouth; art by Skarita.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prometheus and Eurydice

**== > October**

 

You awake in agony that passes in the blink of an eye. Afterimages, streaks of them, criss-cross your vision. A familiar voice is saying _Rosie, thank god_ , and the speaker gathers you into their arms - it's a woman, you can feel the gentle swell of her chest.

You know the scent of her, but not her name.

As your eyes begin to clear you notice how white your hand looks in hers, and can only assume it has always been so.

 

**== > November**

 

You look down at the leatherbound journal, and then back up at Roxy. She's your sister, evidently.

According to her, your name is Rose Lalonde.

"What would you like me to write in it?" you ask.

She shrugs. "Whatever you want. Anything that stands out, I guess. Maybe it'll help you remember."

Somehow you doubt that. It's been four days since the accident, and your past is still a blank. Your hands seem to remember things, though. Even the left one, black leather over what feels like metal, remembers how to gesture and conjure and strike. Some part of you remembers how to call the dark thorns.

Roxy says they call you Lady Rosebriar.

You can only wonder who she was.

"All right," you say, without feeling. "I'll try."

 

_11/3_

_R's idea to keep diary. Thinks it will "help". Dubious.  
Three targets apprehended: two mundane, petty thieves, one supernatural, adult male, pyrokinetic, serial arsonist. Quote R: "the city is saved again, go team us".  
City appears unchanged._

 

The end of another thankless night's work comes without fanfare. You check all your specimens, bank the fire in the boiler and under the heating baths, tidy the workbenches (yeah right) and lock the reinforced door behind you. There's an emergency supply kit in your bedroom if you need it - disruption spray, iron and silver chains, smoke bombs and the like - but all the stuff that's not ready for fieldwork yet has to stay in the lab. When you need something to stop a super in their tracks, you have to be sure it's going to work. You've learned that lesson more times than should've been necessary.

You do it because no one else can. That's what you tell yourself.

Closer to the truth is that no one else _will_.

You almost trip over Rose in the hallway. She's sitting on the floor, cross-legged, reading in the dark - which she can do, actually, thanks to her powers of darkness. Supers, right? She never used to sit in the hall like this, though. Reading was sacred and personal to her; she'd shut herself away in her room and glare at you if you interrupted. A lot's changed since the Incident. She's coming back to herself slowly, in pieces.

You'd suggest she got some sleep, if she still slept. As it is, you pat her vaguely and try not to worry when she doesn't react.

Some of those pieces are never coming back.

 

_11/5_

_Guy Fawkes Night. Blaze out of control. Baker's son, 12, manifested wind powers in the attempt to put it out; mixed results. Centaur's new water engine a success. He seems intent on taking the boy under his wing; quote R, "better him than the Scourge Sisters"._

_Pounce mourning loss of my memory. Used to enjoy visiting, playing with R's clowder. Asked if cats miss her._

_Do cats miss people?_

 

"Pounce," says Roxy, "is a little girl who forgets that not everybody speaks Cat. If she asks again, tell her yes; she can come by any time and play with them."

"Very well."

For a while there’s nothing but the background murmur of the lab. Genius in progress, Roxy calls it. She's watching something purple and sweet-smelling condense into a flask. Soporific. She’s working on a rapid dispersal system. For your part, you're recalibrating your needles to account for some wear and tear. The black conductor strip on the left one is starting to char at the tip. You’ll have to repair it soon.

"You still don't remember her, do you."

You look up. Roxy is watching you now, weary and concerned in equal measure. You pull the needles apart with a squeaky pop of displaced reality and shake your head. "Today was our second meeting. These people you call allies, friends - they're strangers to me. Kind strangers, but strangers nonetheless."

Roxy gives you a faintly pitying look. "You can trust them. I promise."

"I trust you," you answer, as if that says everything. After a fashion, it does. You trust her, you trust her word, and if she says these people are allies then allies they must be. She is the source not of all knowledge - far from that - but of everyday truths.

Back beyond the accident, she is the only memory you have.

 

_11/10_

_Eventful five days. Unexpected dirigible excursion in pursuit of smuggling ring; apprehended six members, all mundane. One supernatural freed, female, canine hybrid, seems capable of spatial distortion. Several dismembered bodies found; two supernaturals confirmed dead, other victims likely supernatural. Suspect scientists seeking cure again. Quote R: "as if you're fuckin' plague-bearers". We are not._

_R fell asleep in hall. Put her to bed. Looks very young indeed without frock coat or lab coat, neither carrying firearm nor affecting swagger._

_I think I pity mundanes._

 

After a week of hell and sleep deprivation, there are far worse sights to wake up to than Rose.

She's sitting at the foot of your bed, reading again. The paper rustles as she turns a page, and you pick out the contours of her face through mostly-closed eyes. God dammit, why did she have to grow up gorgeous? If you'd been there for it everything would probably have been fine, but the two of you were raised separately: you by your supernatural father, the nigh-legendary Flashstep, and she by your mundane, but brilliant, mother. The lack of a bond between you save what you forged for yourselves, banding together for support and protection in the wake of their deaths, lends itself to thoughts that are...less than sisterly. 

You can't help it. She's lovely. Sometimes you wish she wasn't - especially not in the bleak way that she is now, deathly pale, every cell gone stark white. It suits her too well.

"I know you're awake."

The interjection drives your guilty train of thought right off the rails. Rose hasn't even looked up. "Your breathing changed five minutes ago," she adds, as if you'd given voice to the incredulous _how the fuck_ that flashed across your mind. "You're about as subtle as an oncoming rhinoceros."

Ah, hell. You should have expected that. Rose is right; you're not that subtle.

But she hasn't called you on those un-sisterly thoughts of yours - no matter how large they feel writ upon your face - so for now, at least, you're subtle enough where it counts.

 

_11/11_

_R has another look for me besides pitying/amused/worried/exasperated. Soft. Message unknown. Does not like me to catch her using it. Noticed it before; thought little of it until today._

_Felt something when I saw it. Uncertain if pleasant or painful. Sympathetic echo?_

_I must have loved her once._

_I wonder how it felt._

 

**== > December**

 

 _12/2_  
Apprehended: four mundanes, assault and battery  
Killed: one mundane, rape

Found drawing of mechanical heart amidst piles of papers. Beautiful. Elegant. Felt stirrings of something. Uncertain if R's work; complimenting drawing brought tears to her eyes.

 

 

12/4  
Apprehended: one supernatural, juvenile male, ventriloquist, stalking and persistent harrassment

Nineteenth birthday. Cake ensued. Sweetness discernible. R overjoyed; while sweetness not earth-shattering revelation, reaction from R pleasing.

~~I don't feel nineteen.~~

 

You shouldn't have taken her old diaries. "Shouldn't" has never stopped you before, though, and it's not stopping you now. These things are heavy reading sometimes, but they're as close as you can get to picking her brain these days. She'd dropkick you into a low orbit if she knew.

You hope she still cares enough to dropkick you, anyway.

On this page she's writing about what she calls an "impromptu field test" of one of your heavy weapons. She's being generous - frankly it was fire the thing or die anyway - but you're enjoying the memory of working with her as she was.

_"Next time, Orpheus," say I, singed and bleeding, "don't look back to see if I'm with you before you knock down the gates of Tartarus."  
She smiles easily, lazily, a sleek golden cat drunk on cream and victory. "So what, you're Eurydice tonight?" says she, and then, with more gravity, "I'd go through Hell to get you, you know."  
"I know," say I, and I do._

Your fingertip traces the O of Orpheus, the E of Eurydice, and you wonder if she'll ever write - or speak - this way again.

 

_12/7  
Apprehended: two supernaturals, male and female, flight, grand theft  
Collateral damage: six chimney pots, approximately two dozen roof tiles and a pigeon's nest_

_Pounce no longer permitted to pilot dirigible._

_12/11_

_Seven mundane suspects in supernatural smuggling case found lynched with red rope. R suspects Scourge Sisters; says Pyralspite's calling card is a red noose. Sisters have little regard for the lives of those they perceive as guilty, especially but not limited to mundanes. R says we have had dealings with them in the past, both as allies and as rivals; seems concerned they will "off all our leads before we can follow any of them". Case remains open._

_12/12_

_Centaur reports another supernatural missing: juvenile male, induces primal fear. Likely wearing fool's motley._

_If lynchings were intended to deter, the Sisters have failed._

 

**== > January**

 

_1/29_

_Report of month's activities follows._

_Apprehended: eight mundanes, all adult males, various roles in kidnapping, trafficking and murder of supernaturals  
Killed: approximately a dozen mundanes, affiliated with trafficking ring or hired as enforcers  
Rescued: three supernaturals, two males (telekinesis, metallic form) and one female (supernatural strength, speed and reflexes, moth-like insectoid form, hemovore - "Bloody Mary")  
Found dead: between three and six supernaturals  
Collateral damage: one large fishing boat (used as cover for transport, burned), several doors, walls and windows, one church bell (details best omitted)_

_R says we would be fools to think this is the last of them. Inclined to agree._

_Bloody Mary remembers me. She is beautiful, but her eyes are full of loss._

_I believe I pity supernaturals, too._

 

"Writing about Mary?"

You set down your pen. "Not particularly. I remember little of her to write about."

Roxy perches on the edge of the desk and toys with a lock of your hair. "Y'know, she used to be pretty sweet on Lady Rosebriar."

"That explains much." You chew your lip for a moment. "Did I harbour any feelings of the kind for her?"

Your sister shrugs eloquently. "Beats the heck outta me. Always was hard to tell, even before..." Her mouth twists. "...well, everything. - Look, if it's not helping to keep a journal, don't...y'know...don't force it. It shouldn't be a chore."

You consider that. "Sometimes I find it difficult to record anything of note."

"Then I guess..." She shrugs again. "...don't write unless there's something to say?"

It's as good a system as any. You nod. "I'll record the deaths of our culprits when they hang, I suppose."

Roxy gives you an unreadable look - and abruptly you remember that, for a woman with so many black cats (and _mutant_ black cats, at that), Roxy is surprisingly superstitious.

You hope you didn't just tempt fate.

 

**== > April**

 

_4/5_

_Smugglers involved in supernatural trafficking all acquitted._

_R broke a lamp._

_Two events related._

_4/6_

_All eight smugglers found lynched with red rope._

_R almost brought down main hall chandelier._

_Is she angry because they were murdered, or because Pyralspite killed them before she had the chance to do so herself?_

_Seeing R like this feels strange. Painful._

_4/8_

_Confrontation with Scourge Sisters over red rope lynchings. Pyralspite's draconic form impressive, but not immune to snares; Spinneret's psychic web troublesome, but overcome with disruption grenade. Both highly capable swordswomen. Left hand sustained some damage._

_After capture, Sisters provided troubling intelligence: authorities bribed handsomely to acquit defendants involved in smuggling supernaturals, both dead and alive, into clandestine research facilities as yet unbreached by outsiders. Spinneret hints I may be linked to the case, quote: "people who stand in his way have nasty accidents". Curious._

_R seemed keen to turn Sisters in, but ~~released them~~ threw them out in response to taunt from Pyralspite. Reproduced in entirety:_

_"Hark, the modern Prometheus. You who stole fire from the gods, you say we should not do their work. You who breathed life into clay, you say life is not to be trifled with. We have words for people like you. But tell me, Pygmalion, now that your creation draws breath...do you love her? Or does Orpheus fear he brought back the wrong Eurydice?"_

_Legends clear. Prometheus created humans from clay, gave them life. Pygmalion created woman from ivory, petitioned gods to give her life. Orpheus tried to bring back Eurydice's spirit from underworld after her untimely death. Less clear: Pyralspite's meaning in referencing said legends, and why reference caused R to eject Sisters so violently._

_R hiding in lab. Will ask her to mend hand later._

 

 

Roxy turns your unresponsive left hand in a few different directions, her fingers light on your wrist. "Mmh. Looks like something's loose inside - should take maybe five minutes."

She sets your arm down, places her tools on the workbench and unrolls the canvas with a sweep of her hand. The delicate way she plucks a thin spanner from its pocket puts you more in mind of a surgeon than a gunsmith. Her dexterity is wasted on rifles; she should work on people, not weapons. 

You, of course, could probably be classified as either.

She picks a fragment of torn leather off the base of your thumb, peeling it back like skin to show bright metal beneath. You let her flex your fingers and wrist, waiting patiently as every joint clicks through its range of motion -

A spike of pain shoots up your arm. Roxy has opened up the plate just below your wrist and is knuckle-deep in the workings. She twangs a wire; another jolt of pain follows. You grit your teeth. "Ow."

You receive a distinctly unimpressed look in return. "Very funny. Give it up, Rosie; you know damn well you can't feel anything in this." 

Something goes _clack_ inside your palm. Only the weight of uncooperative steel keeps you from jerking your arm away. " _Ow_."

Roxy sets down her spanner and looks at you carefully, blank inquisition a curtain drawn over what might be fear. "Okay, can you...actually feel what I'm doing?"

"Yes," you say, a little shakily. "It hurts. Quite a lot."

She blanches. "Shit," she says, with palpable feeling. "Shit, shit, _shit_." You don't understand this at all - you can't remember a time when you couldn't feel with both hands - but before you can protest she's talking again, stumbling over her words in something like stress. "My god, this - I'm sorry, this has to be a complication from the accident. I had to pull some pretty fancy bullshit to save you, and it must've...linked you to your hand - god, Rose, I'm so fucking sorry. Just - let me - "

She seizes her spanner and tightens something, quick and surgical - a crushing wave of pain makes you wheeze in agony - then slams the plate shut and screws it into place, leaving you openmouthed, gasping.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. Her forehead is pressed to your temple; her words are little more than air against your cheek. "I should never have - I should - "

But she trails off before the end of the sentence, and it takes the both of you some minutes to breathe easy again.

 

_4/12_

_~~Have discerned source of probl~~ _

_I'm not aging._

_My hair doesn't grow. My skin doesn't shed. I don't sleep._

_I'm not alive._

_This is what Pyralspite meant. This is why R is "Orpheus" and "Pygmalion" and "the modern Prometheus"._

_She raised me from the dead._

_Animated me._

_Like a puppet._

_I haven't been alive for five and a half months._

_~~I am angr~~ ~~I am furi~~ ~~I am going to~~ ~~I'm going t~~ ~~I~~_

_~~WHAT HAS SHE DONE TO ME?~~ _

_I need answers._

 

"I died that night, didn't I."

Roxy turns to you with a start. She hadn't heard you come in.

"I died and you brought me back."

You watch the colour drain from her face as you approach, your left hand wreathed in creeping darkness.

"That's why my hand feels pain. You _animated_ me. Those drawings of the mechanical heart - that's what's in my chest. That's _my heart_. You designed it and you had Zahhak make it and you..." For a moment the anger stops up your throat; you continue in a rasp. "How long was I dead, then?"

Roxy swallows, thick and audible. "Rosie - "

" _How. Long._ "

She squeezes her eyes shut - and finally, _finally_ , she forces out the truth.

"...Two days."

The information sinks in; its consequences unfold in your mind. "Then the heart was already complete when I was killed."

"It was a project," she says, setting down her pencil. "Mine and his. My idea, his blueprints, our execution." A bitter smile. "You hated it."

"I know. I found my diary." You punctuate that by tossing the offending volume to land at her feet. She flinches at the echoing _slap_ of it against the floor. "I was quite clear about my feelings on the subject, both on paper and ostensibly to you. So really, sister dear, it boggles the mind that you still saw fit to use this - _thing_ \- " You press your hand to your chest, as if trying to force the intruder out. " - to reanimate me."

She's leaning on the workbench with one hand. The other is covering her eyes, rubbing her face. "You're angry."

"About you bringing me back from the dead against my wishes? Yes, Roxy, I believe I _am_ angry."

"W-well that's good, that's...that's great, that's _emotion_ , you're..." She gestures clumsily, knocking the pencil off the bench. "...coming around, like I said you would. You're coming _back_."

It sounds like begging, and you can't bear that. "Actually, I thought I might go."

In that instant she looks like a child, bereft. "...Go where?"

"Away." The flat monotone that came so easily to you mere weeks ago is a struggle to maintain. "Anywhere that isn't here."

You watch the panic set in. "No, Rosie, you can't - "

"Trust you," you interrupt her, cold and precise as a scalpel. "That's the end of that sentence. I can't trust you. I came back with nothing, do you understand? My mind was _empty_ save for what you gave me, and now...everything is in doubt. _Everything_."

You turn away, shaking your head. This new-found depth of emotion is threatening to rob you of your self-control. If you stay longer you fear you'll tear her apart, and despite everything you don't want her gone from the world.

Is this what it feels like to love someone?

"I'm dead, Roxy," you call to her as you leave, not looking back. "Let me go."

She lets you go.

 

_She's gone._

_I'm a fucking idiot._

_To anyone who finds this: I know Lady Rosebriar better than she knows herself, and I know where she's headed._

_She wants to know who killed her._

_The Scourge Sisters know._

_They also know who paid for the hit._

_She's gone to find them. Once she has their intel, she'll drop in on the bastard like a long ton of grimdark bricks. A high-profile target like the Doctor...that'd kill any chance of supernatural representation in Parliament, not to mention ruin the reputation of every super from here to Babylon._

_I can't let that happen._

_So, much as I never thought I'd be writing this, I have to go save Doc Scratch from my sister._

_If I'm already dead: Centaur gets the lab, Bloody Mary gets the library, Pounce gets the cats, everybody's happy._

_If not: get your asses out here and help, because I don't think I can pull this off alone._

_Love you all (yeah, C, even you)_

_~ Genetrix_

 

You don't even make it to the end of the driveway.

Scratch's Handmaid is waiting for you.

Fleeing across the lawn, you barely dodge a flying chunk of your mother's fashionable faux-ruins. Doppelgangers _and_ flight; just your luck. If you could get a clear shot you could take her down, but her hundred-and-seven copies are flawless and you can't smoke out the original without some kind of scatter shot.

Rose, unprepared, didn't stand a chance.

You, without her, probably don't either.

No sooner has that thought crossed your mind than the air starts to prickle around you. Something rushes past you and snakes in amongst the handmaids - dozens of strands of dark briar, like holes cut into the world, wreathed in white where the light is trying to escape them - and your insides tie into beautiful knots because power is a fingerprint, an image of the soul, and there's only one person who could make thorns like that. Only one in the history of the world.

But one of the hundred-and-eight handmaidens just flinched, and even as you ache to turn around you're lining up your shot.

 _Don't look back, Orpheus,_ you tell yourself, and pull the trigger.

_CRACK._

There's no rush of wind or howling spirits. She dies without ceremony, a bullet in her heart, all her copies winking out in an instant as she falls to the ground. The _thump_ of her body on the grass is anticlimactic.

Once upon a time, she deserved better.

The dark thorns retreat, and now that you're out of Hell you can look over your shoulder to see them vanishing into Rose's left hand. She's channeling her power right through that hand and the thorns aren't even scratching the leather. It's like having needles built in. Accidental genius.

"You're back!"

Could you sound sillier if you tried? Probably not, but Rose has an arm around you and her head on your shoulder so apparently neither one of you cares. "I should never have left," she says, remorseful, and puts her dark hand in yours -

...and there are roses embroidered into the leather, black-on-black, stitches so fine she might have dreamed them there. Grown them there.

It's beautiful, it's impossible, and it's her.

You lift her hand to your lips and kiss the centre of the palm. You know she feels it; her fingers twitch. She's fighting not to react - briefly closed eyes and a slow breath in, that's all she gives you - but it's enough just to feel her there, coming alive in your arms.

Between you, you're bringing her back.

"I'm still angry with you," she says at length, soft, with a touch of fondness.

You grin. "I know. C'mon - I gotta take down my panicked farewell note before Centaur finds it and blows a fuse..."

You lace her fingers into yours, and you lead her home.

 

_4/13  
Killed: one supernatural, female, spectral forms, murder in the first degree (victim Rose Lalonde)  
Apprehended: one mundane, wayward sister in desperate need of protection and guidance_

_Handmaid dead. DS still working against supernaturals, agenda and motivations unknown. Tentative truce with Scourge Sisters; calling in all contacts to discuss forming united front against him._

_As for me..._

_I'm trying._

_For now, that will have to do._

**Author's Note:**

> This piece took ninth place out of sixty-eight teams in Round Two. Thanks to the rest of the team - Alex, C, Katy and Val - for support, and to everyone who voted for us!


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